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Thursday, 1 September 2016

FROG kits
always had something slightly exotic about them back in the day. For one thing,
they were harder to find, and more expensive, than Airfix kits, for another
FROG seemed to cover rare and wonderful aircraft. The two FROGs that I bought
in the early 1970s were the Heinkel He 219 ‘Uhu’, which with its tricycle
undercarriage, sticky out radar bits, and funky camouflage, looked like nothing
else in my collection. The other was a Blackburn Shark, whose floats I
subsequently salvaged from the Shark’s back garden ‘crash’, keeping them for a
never to be completed float equipped Spitfire conversion. And now, over 40
years later, I’ve got hold of a very old boxing of FROG’s Blackburn Skua, courtesy of my son - a present for his ageing pater.

A quick
google, and it looked like the ‘red series’ boxing that I had was one of the
earliest, some 50 years old. The box was in pretty good condition, and all the parts,
excepting the wing light transparency, were there, as were the decals and
single piece instruction sheet – both of which were rather spectacularly
yellowed.

Now, the Skua is still a rare bird, and as far as I know only Special
Hobby have kitted it, in the gentleman’s scale. There is also limited
information available, but Mushroom Model Publications came to the rescue with
Matthew Willis’ fantastically informative Blackburn
Skua & Roc. Willis’ book gives a good account of both aircraft, their
development, and deployment, along with masses of photographs and 1/72 scale
drawings and colour views. The Skua was a
typical naval compromise, designed to give the FAA an accurate dive bomber, and
an escort fighter to see off threats to the fleet. The particular demands of
the Navy meant that the Skua had a good range and was strongly built, even if
it was underpowered and not up to facing land-based fighters. At the outset of
the war it took a number of ‘firsts’. A Skua was credited with shooting down
the first German aircraft (though later evidence gave this accolade to a Fairey
Battle, of all things). More spectacularly, Skuas from 800 and 803 Squadrons,
FAA, were the first aircraft, and the first dive bombers, to sink a warship,
when they sank the cruiser Königsberg on 10th April, 1940, during
the Norwegian campaign.

The kit plastic was fairly thick, and, of course, boasted extensive raised panelling and rivets. Given the age of the kit, and the fact that I wanted a real FROG, I was happy with that. The scale plans in Willis’s book showed that everything was good in terms of overall dimensions, with the odd exception of the fin and the horizontal tail planes. Both of these were undersized, but of the correct, slightly complex shape. Not willing to face fabricating replacements, I decided to live with that. Inside the fuselage, things were pretty bare, with a floor, two comfy chairs, two pilot figures and a misshapen machine gun for the Telegraphist Air Gunner (TAG). I had a reasonable Lewis gun from a recent build of a Matchbox Heyford which replaced the blob, but something more was needed. Although the long ‘greenhouse’ canopy of the Skua is more like a shed, with heavy framing and small windows, I still wanted a bit more inside. Looking at the photographs in Willis’s book, what struck me was the unfortunate position of the TAG. Effectively he sat on a cushion stuffed between two long, unprotected, fuel tanks that ran nearly the length of the cockpit. I added these out of plasticard, plus two seats from the spares box, a fuse wire control column, and an inaccurate instrument panel. I reckoned that would suffice for peering at through the cockpit windows, and turned my attention to the underside of the fuselage. FROG’s Skua had a completely inaccurate underside, being a flat panel from engine to tail. In fact, the Skua carried its main bomb load semi-recessed in the fuselage, and it was delivered towards the target by a bomb crutch. In addition, being designed for carrier operation, there was an arrestor hook. I cut out the bomb bay, which was open, and fabricated a bomb crutch with brass rod and stretched sprue. Plasticard and brass rod made up the arrestor hook, and I was ready to close up the fuselage.

The profile
in Willis’s book show L2928 sporting an individual code ‘S’, which was not
included on the small decal sheet. Also missing were the underwing roundels. I
was able to source those from an Airfix post-war PR Spitfire, but had no luck
in my decals library (old fag packet from the 1970s full of tiny clipped off decal bits) with the ‘S’. After a couple of coats of Klear, I was
ready to try the ancient decals on their little square of yellowed paper. I
expected them to explode into fragments when they hit the water, but, not in
the slightest. In fact, it took a good while to separate them from the backing
paper, but with some setting solution, they worked perfectly, and settled
nicely over the raised panels and rivets. The training aircraft looked used,
tired, and pretty grubby, so I added finishing touches with a wash, some
chipping, and pastels, and there she was,
sitting on the grass strip, waiting to train more FAA heroes, in 1/72.

Quotation of the moment

'In a sense, nothing in life is planned - or everything is - because in the dance every step is ultimately the corollary of the step before; the consequence of being the kind of person one chances to be.'

Anthony Powell, The Acceptance World (A Dance to the Music of Time), 1955.

Cpt. Front

About Me

New Men-At-Arms

Not out until February 2018, but order your copy early - you know it makes sense!

NOW IN PAPERBACK!!!

The Home Guard - 'This is likely to be the standard reference book on the subject for many years to come'; Bernard Lowry, Fortress Study Group.

A Vanished Ideology Essays on the Jewish Communist Movement in the English-Speaking World

Yiddish-speaking, English-speaking, Jews in the Communist movement. With a chapter on British Jews, ethnicity and class, by Al Front.

When Jews had a place on the Left.

The Labour Party is sunk in a mess of anti-Semitism, but it was not always thus:

Alf R. Ont on the wireless

Click on the image and scroll to 01:05:23 for the dulcet tones of Mr Ont, talking about women in the Home Guard.

Women in the Home Guard

From The Conversation, 5th February, 2016. Active, patriotic British women to the fore...

NEW BIOGRAPHY of 'FLYING' FAY TAYLOUR

277 pages of thrills and spills. 'Fanatical Fay Taylour', the greatest woman motor sports champion yet. A speed fiend on race tracks across the world, and a political activist who was banned from the USA, and interned in the UK. Member of the ultra-right underground in 1940s London and Dublin, later an Irish republican and supporter of Castro. Click image for a FREE ,yes, FREE, Pdf version provided by the University of Warwick.

Evolution and change in politics

A review of a new history of what was once a notable element of political allegiance among the Jewish diaspora. (Clink on the image for free link).

Germany calling...

The woman who recruited 'Lord Haw Haw' to the Berlin wireless. Socialist, Bolshevik, National Socialist, enemy broadcaster. (From The Historian 119; click on image for Pdf)

BBC Radio 4: Red Clydeside, Decoy Defences and Invasion panic

More Radio 4 'Making History' rambling - from 20th November 2012 (click on the image for link)

'The Land of My Dreams'

British Great War literary combatants and their writing about the war and home. A Pdf of an article from Cultural & Social History, vol. 8, no: 2, June 2011. (Click on image for link).

British Jews & the Communist Party of Great Britain

More reading for the VBCW enthusiast, not to mention the discerning reader (click on image for link). From Socialist History, vol.12, no: 41, September 2012

BBC Radio 4: Speed, women, and fascism

Listen to my dulcet tones, talking about 'Flying' Fay Taylour on BBC Radio 4's Making History (click on the image for link)

'Fay Taylour: a dangerous woman in sport and politics'

A must for the VBCW gamer - the most successful woman motor sport ace ever and a fascist. Click on image for journal link, an open access Pdf will eventually be available.

The Armourer magazine, March/April 2012

The true daughters of Britannia who joined the Home Guard

Political internment without trial, 1940 style

Fascists, nazis, and the IRA interned. Click on image for back issue of Britain At War, issue 46, Feb 2011

George Blake, literary Scot in the Great War

The Great War fiction of the veteran, George Blake - from Cencrastus no:67. Out of print, but I can send a photocopy, if you wish.

For the VBCW war gamer

In History Scotland, March/April 2011; click on image for free Pdf.

Fifth Column panic!

Buy a back issue - all that is left

The incomparable generation of 1914

from The Historian no:110, Summer 2011, magazine of The Historical Association; click on image for Pdf.

BBC Radio 4: Stand By the King!

Listen to my words of historical wisdom about the BUF in Norfolk on Radio 4's 'Making History'. Click on image for link.

One I did earlier...

Musso and the RSI

Fascism in Scotland

From the Scottish Historical Review, volume 87 (2) 2008 (click on the image for Pdf link)

Another Home Guard one...

A 50 page booklet, now out of print, but available as a pdf from Warwick University - click on the image for the link.